They’re moments when the world seems to stop for a minute. When everything around you is in perfect alignment. When you know you’re where you should be, that what you’re feeling is truth and that everything around you is right.

I had a moment like that early last week.

It was almost naptime for a busy little nine-month old and because my previous attempt at getting her to sleep had been unsuccessful, I thought we’d start with a little classical music. Because it was Christmas, what better than Handel’s “Messiah.”

When the music started, she looked around intently to see the source, then became very still.

Not a muscle moved as the overture concluded and the arias and choruses began.

There was something in that music that mesmerized her. As I held her, it was clear she listened not with just her ears but with her whole being.

I had thought her too young to understand the significance of the words or the magnificence of the music. And yet she did. We did together.

It was a celestial moment.

Celestial moments have come when driving in the mountains, rounding a corner and coming across a vista of golden aspens surrounded by ragged peaks.

They have come when watching a schmaltzy old movie where an epiphany comes not only to the characters, but to all of us who are right there beside them.

They always come with rainbows.

Most of those Celestial moments are a combination of you-had-to-be-there-to-feel-it moments and I-can’t-do-it-justice-by-telling-it kind of moments, so I won’t detail them further.

But I invite you to think on your own fleeting, few and far between moments that are somehow Celestial.

You’ll need them because you’re probably reeling, as we all are, from the event that happened late last week.

I can’t talk about it.

But I can say I saw an incredible crescent moon between whispy clouds over the lights of a city last night. And I read this morning about someone who gave the same inexpensive but meaningful gift to a child every Christmas as a signal of love and sacrifice. I read about some people who helped frightened children, and others who sent messages of love, and others who left items of significance to honor them.

And I know there is still good in the world.

And I know we can find it if we seek it.

And once we find it we shouldn’t let it be too fleeting. We should hang onto it.